Tourism economic impact wanes despite visitor growth, warns senator

Opposition Senator Ryan Walters has raised an alarm over tourism’s diminishing contribution to Barbados’ GDP, despite an increase in long-stay visitor arrivals.

In the Senate, he urged the government to take a more strategic approach to maximising the economic benefits of the tourism industry and foreign investment.

Senator Walters referenced the statistics reported in the recent Central Bank’s Q4 Report of 2024 and noted that while 2024 recorded higher long-stay visitor arrivals than 2019, 2018, and 2017, a positive sign for the industry, the economic return per visitor has fallen significantly during the same period.

He said: “There were more long-stay visitors in 2024 than there were in 2019, 2018, 2017, and that is a good sign for the country and we need to continue to make every effort to make sure that we attract tourists to our country. But when you look at the contribution to the GDP of tourism, that is where you start to get a little headache. Although you are seeing an increase in the number of stay-over passengers to the country, you are actually seeing a decline in the contribution to the GDP of tourism.

“When you do a correlation between the two, it tells you that the contribution from a long-stay visitor has moved from $141.34 in 2019, down to $90.91 in 2024. That is a decline of 29 per cent in terms of a long-stay visitor’s contribution to GDP in tourism.”

Senator Walters also cautioned against placing too much pressure on a single sector to drive foreign exchange earnings while failing to address key inefficiencies in others.

He said: “We can’t just be overworking one department, one ministry, one area of focus, trying to close the gap on our foreign exchange deficit, and then on the other hand not we are not paying enough attention on some of these details that have the ability to contribute significantly to our ability to earn foreign exchange, retain foreign exchange, or not spend foreign exchange.”

He also pleaded with the administration to focus more on foreign direct investment (FDI), given the stagnating numbers seen within the sector over the past six years.

“In 2018, direct foreign investment was $464.8 million, in 2019 that fell 19 per cent to $375.3 million BDS – In 2019 the Barbados Labour Party had one full year of governance,” said Senator Walters. “In 2021 that amount [was] $417.8 million, in 2023 it was $449.8 million, all below the amounts in 2018, [before their] coming to office.”